Obsolete floppy disks: New Jersey State Prison still works with them
In Germany, floppy disks have long been written off. For prison inmates in New Jersey, they are still commonplace.
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Prison inmates in New Jersey have to rely on outdated word processing programs, electric typewriters and floppy disks. According to the Prison Journalism Project (PJP), not even USB sticks are allowed; instead, inmates are allowed to have up to 20 floppy disks.
Floppy disks cause problems
Floppy disks, which have been displaced in most parts of the world for decades, for example by USB sticks, pose problems for New Jersey's prison inmates. They only have 1.44 megabytes of storage space, so even a single letter can take up too much space. In addition, according to the inmates, floppy disks crash quickly.
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Jorge Luis Alvarado is himself incarcerated in New Jersey State Prison and writes for the PJP. He comments, "After hours and hours of legal work, you can lose everything in an instant." When Alvarado's lawyer informs him about his trial, he does so via USB sticks, not floppy disks. This is because the production of floppy disks ended in 2011, so there are only a limited number of them left, and they are rarely sold. As a result, Alvarado cannot read the files directly; he first has to submit a request to view the contents of the USB stick via transcripts. This could take several days.
Alvarado suggests opening it up to newer technology, such as notebooks without internet and with limited rights.
(mma)
